Michelle Obama won't comment on Biden apology, holds off on endorsement

[PatrickforO]

60. No, it actually isn't. The concept is called conflation, and what it looks like

on the ground is that there are two separate issues.

First, the Obamas are waiting until the primary is over, or at least well underway to endorse any one of the candidates.

Second, Biden is under criticism for playing up how he successfully worked with these segregationists, and subsequently apologized.

Two...

separate...

events...

But, by putting them together, the reporter and editor of the for-profit news media outlet can make it 'seem' more 'interesting' i.e. controversial, by writing the headline so it implies a causal relationship between the two separate events. Because to me, the headline seems engineered to imply that a) Biden made the comments, b) Michelle Obama heard the comments, c) Michelle Obama was offended by the comments, d) Michelle said she was specifically going to withhold endorsement from Joe Biden BECAUSE of the comment.

Then, of course, when you read the article, you see it doesn't say that at all.

Pardon me for being curious, but surely you've noticed this penchant for creating faux 'controversy' in headlines before? I mean, all you have to do is look at ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and you can see this in action. I will remind you also that our major media outlets are all, every single one, owned by for-profit publicly held corporations. Remember that the primary mission of ANY emission from ANY of these stations is to either keep revenue stable or increase revenue, because increased revenue is the fiduciary responsibility of the CEO - to keep shareholder profits up regardless of the welfare of workers, consumers or the environment.

That's just how it is, blue.

Now, your motive here seems to be to take a poke at Biden supporters based on this misleading headline and generate lots of back and forth responses, but the problem is those back and forth responses are based on the fallacy of conflation. There are plenty of things all of the candidates need to answer for during this primary season, and it seems to me that you do not need to use a misleading headline that conflates two separate issues to do so.

If you wanted to make a credible criticism of Biden, there are certainly enough factual things out there, votes, support for bills, etc. to do that without this particular article. That is my point.